Something to relate to...

[scldrgnfly]

I have two experiences that have been so fantastic, that I have to share them.

When I was in the eigth grade we moved to Port Huron, Michigan. While this was over 40 years ago, at the time the library there was almost a hundred years old. It was a testament not only to our benefactor Andrew Carnegie, but also to the Industrial Revolution and modular cast iron structure. I was young, and the only light in the towering stacks were from bare light bulbs and the translucent glass floors that allowed the muted light to be shared by the adjacent floors. The narrow spiral staircases that joined each floor, with their translucent glass steps made ascending and descending between the seemingly weightless floors an even eerier experience. My first lonely summer there with no human friends, turned this endless supply of human experience into a fantastical world to which I would love to retreat to this day. Thank you Mr. Carnegie!

The next experience, again occurred, during a lonely summer, where we had just .moved to the town of Wake Forest, North Carolina. The college of Wake Forest had moved from there in 1957, to become Wake Forest University in Winston Salem, North Carolina. On the corner of Main Street, across from the old Wake Forest Chapel was the old school book shop. When we moved there, it was called Steven's Bookshop. It was even darker and more frightening than the library at Port Huron. On the tall bookshelves where ancient law books sat, cobwebs moved gently in the darkness with each pass over the stacks of books that cluttered the floors. It had been years since Mr. Stevens had sorted his books. Every visit was a treasure hunt, and they were all his children. I'll never forget finding the series "Journeys Through Bookland," the same edition my grandmother used to have. It was all there, but the second volume. I begged Mr. Stevens to sell the set to me....but he wouldn't. He knew he had the second volume somewhere, and he knew he would find it. For two and a half years I begged him to sell the set to me. Finally, he did allow me to buy the set. It is the most wonderful set of stories....but....the best book of the series was volume 2, the one that is stilissed, even I can remember the limerics and poetry my grandmother used to read to us.

I think we all love our books, but just now I realized, how important my grandmother's and my mother's love of books and stories was to nurturing that desire in me. Thanks Grandma, Mom and Mr. Carnegie. I think he donated over 1000 libraries around the country, maybe many more than that....on my cell phone, or Is Google it.